Why San Diego airport's plan for $3B makeover has drawn an avalanche of criticism

The San Diego International Airport's more than 50-year-old Terminal 1 would undergo a major expansion and update under a $3 billion plan being advanced by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

The San Diego International Airport's more than 50-year-old Terminal 1 would undergo a major expansion and update under a $3 billion plan being advanced by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

More than a decade after voters dashed any hopes of replacing San Diego’s cramped one-runway airport, its overseers are going all in on a $3 billion makeover they say will ease air travel for the millions more passengers who will be coming to Lindbergh Field, with or without an expansion.

The aging Terminal 1, the centerpiece of what will be the airport’s single largest project, would more than triple in size; the gate count would grow from 19 to 30; and an elevated, $165 million roadway would be built to quickly whisk motorists on HarborDrive directly into the airport.

For anyone who has ever navigated the San Diego International Airport’s oldest terminal — home to growing Southwest Airlines — the project would seem long overdue.

So why then the almost universal chorus of boos coming from nearly every local public agency in the county, as well as nearby communities?

It is not so much the project itself that is drawing critiques from entities like the city of San Diego, the Port of San Diego, California Coastal Commission and Metropolitan Transit System. Rather, it’s the project’s environmental consequences — most notably, increased traffic congestion — that the agencies claim the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority is largely ignoring.

Given the withering criticism, it’s possible it could force a partial rewrite of the project’s environmental impact report, in turn potentially delaying the Terminal 1 expansion, originally planned to start construction in 2020, with completion expected in 2023. (Improvements to Terminal 2, including a a new concourse of up to seven gates at the western end, are envisioned in later phases.)

Airport Authority officials, who originally had hoped to have the environmental report finalized and approved by the end of this year, are saying now that won’t happen.

“We are trying to understand the implications of all these comments and until we get our arms around that, we cannot give you a further answer about a timeline,” said Denny Probst, the Airport Authority’s vice president of development. “We will not be going to the board in December.”

While the airport’s voluminous analysis covers everything from noise and climate change to water quality, it is traffic — and how it is addressed — that has the agencies fuming.

For example, while the report offers up potential ways to address expected congestion, like improved express bus and shuttle service and adding lanes to nearby roads like Hawthorn, Laurel and Grape streets, the Airport Authority ultimately concludes that such projects are “not considered feasible because the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) may not authorize the use of any FAA grant funds or (airport) revenue” for off-airport improvements.

The net effect is that by 2026, traffic impacts would remain “significant and unavoidable” at three intersections, 10 roadways and 24 freeway segments. By 2035, that number would grow to 15 intersections, 18 roadway sections, and 27 freeway segments.

What especially irks several of the agencies who have written formal letters is the Airport Authority’s seeming unwillingness, they say, to share in the cost of a long-sought light rail connection to the airport — be it a trolley extension, automated people mover or skyway — that goes well beyond express bus service.

It is a missing link that has bedeviled the San Diego region for years.

“How is it that most major airports can connect to transit and we’re not even considering it?” asks Port Chairman Rafael Castellanos, whose agency is the airport’s landlord. The port, he says, would love to see a people mover system that would link the airport terminals and rental car center to a nearby San Diego trolley stop. “We have to have that conversation in a real way and the EIR (environmental impact report) completely misses the mark on that.”

Other airports, he says, have embraced such rapid transit connections, including, most recently, Los Angeles, which is about to embark on a nearly $5 billion elevated people mover linking LAX’s central terminal area to the county’s Metro line.

Courtesly of the Port of San Diego

Potential route for a people mover system

Potential route for a people mover system (Courtesly of the Port of San Diego)

As part of a study the port undertook last year looking at ways of easing congestion on heavily trafficked North Harbor Drive, it went so far as to map out a route for a future people mover system that would run on a dedicated track, although no funding has been identified for it.

Likewise, the San Diego Association of Governments is advocating for a more sophisticated transit connection, citing a recently completed study it helped prepare for the county examining a skyway that would make stops not only at the airport, but also at the convention center, Santa Fe Depot and downtown trolley stations.

“The major concern among all the agencies who submitted letters is the airport’s statement that the FAA won’t let them spend money outside their boundaries and we’re all challenging that,” said Charles “Muggs” Stoll, SANDAG’s planning director. “No one is saying the airport should pay 100 percent of the cost. We’re just saying they should acknowledge they should be a funding partner.”

San Diego Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, who represents the communities near the airport, complains that the airport is doing little to protect the quality of life of residents from Point Loma to Pacific Beach, who she says will face much more significant noise and traffic impacts.

For its part, the Airport Authority feels like it’s been entirely misunderstood. In fact, it says it has already broached with the FAA the issue of potentially using airport revenues to fund projects not on airport grounds. But until there is a defined project with an actual cost, securing approval is premature, says Airport Authority CEO Kimberly Becker.

Funding for the Terminals 1 and 2 redevelopment comes from a variety of airport revenues, including landing fees, airline rents for terminal space, parking, concessions, and passenger facility charges.

“I would truly like to set the record straight. I have never said nor will I ever say we are not willing to participate,” Becker said. “But there are absolutely regulations that require us to go through the FAA for permission to participate and we are more than willing to have those conversations.”

With the number of annual passengers is expected to soar from last year’s 22 million to 28 million in 2035, Becker insists that it is not the Terminal 1 expansion that is driving that increased air traffic. Still, the airlines are banking on the redeveloped terminal to make air travel in and out of San Diego more convenient and hassle-free.

According to the Airport Authority, Terminal 1 accounts for just 40 percent of the gates at Lindbergh Field, but more than 50 percent of the passenger traffic.

“The biggest issue people don’t understand is that more people are coming for these flights no matter what, so the airlines are in turn bringing in larger aircraft,” Becker said. “So by having a more modern Terminal 1, it will make the customer experience much more efficient.”

What seems to be overlooked, say airport officials, is their pledge to pay for a new two- and three-lane inbound roadway from Harbor Drive and Laurel that they say will take 45,000 cars a day off Harbor.

The governmental entities counter that the roadway alone is not enough to address the coming gridlock and fault the airport for prioritizing single-occupancy vehicles over transit. As an example, they point to plans for a 7,500-car parking garage.

And the transit solutions the airport does offer up, like converting an existing bus route to the airport to a “rapid”-style service or partnering with local operators to “consider” a transit line from the Old Town station, either fall short or are dismissed by the Airport Authority as infeasible, say the agencies.

While there is an existing airport shuttle that passengers at the Middletown trolley station can access, it’s hardly convenient, as “transit users must walk from the trolley station, down Palm Street, across Pacific Highway, and then north on airport property to reach the shuttle stop,” the Coastal Commission notes in its letter to the Airport Authority. Project approval by the commission will eventually be needed before the terminals can be redeveloped.

As much as some of the sharply worded critiques seem to portend a battle royale, more recent comments from the Airport Authority suggest a Kumbaya moment may be at hand.

“Bottom line is we are willing to do our part and we need the community partners to do their part to make sure the region’s solutions are implemented,” Becker said.

To be fair, many of the kinds of costly transit options the other agencies are advocating do not have funding, including a long-planned “intermodal transit center,” a sort of grand central station north of the airport where trolleys, buses, Amtrak, and Coaster trains could all converge. While included in the region’s long-range transportation, no funding has been identified.

Meanwhile, there is no firm cost for a people mover, although SANDAG estimates a price tag of $350 million to $600 million. The skyway concept, which San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts is pushing, will cost $230 million to $300 million.

(LAWA)

The people mover train will stop three times in the central airport, with moving walkways that will connect travelers to each terminal.

The people mover train will stop three times in the central airport, with moving walkways that will connect travelers to each terminal. ((LAWA))

In Los Angeles, the bulk of the airport’s people mover cost will be covered by a variety of airport revenues. Because the entire project lies within airport property, it didn’t seem to face the kind of hurdle the San Diego Airport Authority says it would confront in using airport-related fees for financing such a transit system.

Congestion at LAX has become so overwhelming, the airport operator had no choice but to move forward with an elevated train, said airport spokesman Mark Waier.

“LAX has nearly 90 million annual passengers and 6,000 cars during peak hours going through the terminal loop per hour to drop people off and pick people up,” Waier said. “It’s pretty obvious that there’s a massive transportation challenge at LAX so we had to look at ways to reduce that congestion.”

“I’m optimistic the airport will do the right thing,” he said. “I think they’re going to work with all of us. This shouldn’t be an adversarial process.”

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